Willoughby Court, who provided Ben Pauling with his first ever Cheltenham Festival winner when winning the 2017 Neptune Management Novices’ Hurdle, has sadly been euthanised following surgery.

The eight-year-old had been due to make his reappearance at Newbury at the end of November but a joint infection that appeared out of nowhere in his hind joint ruled him out of that engagement.

This was flushed and everything seemed fine until 10 days later when the same issue occurred and there was a seed of infection in the sesamoid bone.

“Unfortunately, the infection in the bone had flared up again and despite the best efforts of the fantastic team at Bourton Vale Equine Clinic, sadly we had no alternative but to put him down” Pauling said.

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His brilliance was that he was that bit different and that bit sharper than any other horse I have ever trained. He was a fabulous jumper who very quickly became an incredibly tough competitor which was proven in many of his races, none more so than when he won the Neptune at Cheltenham.”

Pauling continued: “Being our first Festival winner will mean he’ll always be very fondly remembered. Frustratingly, he never actually had many races and we all felt that there was a huge amount of improvement to come.”